⛄ Warming breakfast in the ❄ Snowy Mountains 🌨 sharing photos from the Austrian Tyrol ⛰

Nothing better than waking up to a choco porridge breakfast surrounded by heavenly white snow, it warms up the body so much, you don't feel the fresh icy chill. Actually the the valley is quite sheltered here and you don't feel the wind as much, unlike where I live on the coast of Catalonia.

It was getting pretty cold in Spain and living in an apartment without central heating was just getting too much spending the day in 3 jumpers and a coat. I decided that I should visit an even colder place where they have wood fire ovens and proper heating :)

Lucky for me half my family are from the Tyrolian alps in Austria, it feel's like the end of the earth to get to sometimes. Especially when there's no direct flights available to the nearest airport. I flew to Munich in Germany and went on a 3 hour train journey to arrive at the closest station for the Pitztal valley. Stepping off the train into thick blanket of fresh snow, I was wearing my trainers and was trying to drag my pink rolling case, must of been a funny sight for the people on the train watching me. The days have been misty and dream like, parts of the mountains coming into the view and disappearing again.

Unlike the neighboring valley Otztal with famous ski resorts and connected to Italy, Pitztal valley just ends at a glacier, so it has a more remote feeling, based around farming and just rural villages rather than tourism. The Village where my very elderly grandma lives is about 900m above sea level with 2000 inhabitants, its a small place where people greet each other as they walk past. Two food shops, a ski/hiking shop and a butchers, a few hotels, a swimming pool, a kindergarden and high school, a play park, church and music area. There used to be a cafe, massage parlour and a beauty/chemist type shop but all closed down. It's not exactly a good place for business but there are some tourists who pass through.

I just wanted to share with you some of my snaps because even though I have visited this place at least once or twice a year, I'm still always amazed by the dramatic landscape. Every time I see it, it is always changing and being elevated in the clouds is always like a kind of spiritual experience for me, I think the place puts me into a trance like state, as it is quiet and only the sound of birds and the cow's mooing or the cow bells chiming in the fields can be heard. All around from every aspect you can see trees and nature, I think these properties are very healing for the soul.

I am blessed to have experienced quite different cultures when growing up, living inner city London and then coming here most summers was great for a child. As a moody teenager I complained how boring it was here and how far behind and how narrow minded everything seems, I felt like an outsider wearing my trendy clothes. Thankfully we all grow out of those awkward years and as an adult I can see things from a place of gratitude. Communication with my grandparents has been difficult at times, as they speak a very old thick local dialect and as I was not brought up bi-lingual, and struggled due to my dyslexia, still I managed to absorbed a lot and I could always understand more than I would speak. Finally at the age of 14 I was able to learn German in school which allowed me to get a better grasp of the language, although completely different to the local slang!

This place is known as a kuhdorf (cow village) and everyday life revolves around animals and eating animal based products. A typical breakfast is white bread, ham and cheese, with a glass of milk and a boiled egg and in the summer some garden berries with a heap of sugar on top and salted tomatoes. When I was young I used to quite enjoy it because it was something different to having coco pops everyday, and the strange processed harm was quite addictive. My grandma would fuss over me and I'd have a delicious hot chocolate with the local creamy milk. All this stuff wasn't great as I got older, the fat from these processed meats and cheese really made me quite big around my waste, legs and bum. Clearly it wasn't that healthy apart from the fresh foods, without additives. Now I don't need to be fussed over and I can mange my own vegan breakfast, despite the fact my grandma has no idea what veganism is and can just about grasp vegetarianism. It's been a few years now since I changed my diet and she is slowly getting used to it but occasionally she pipes up to tell me meat is healthy and still offers me eggs and milk.

I'll be writing a post soon about the local animal agriculture here and a cultural critical perspective on the relationships humans have with farm animals in rural areas like these. I find this place quite interesting as a vegan because I almost see it being one of the last places that would stop producing milk and slaughtering animals. There are very few vegetarians in the village, I can count them on one hand and there are no vegan's apart from myself. Here veganism is associated with extremism and has not made it into the local vocabulary yet, it will be interesting to see what happens as more and more young people don't want to do farm work as a job, but still there are social family pressures and small mindedness that force younger generations to keep family traditions going.

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